BT 379 
.P8H6 




■ ?i^'Fi^ 




nr FEEL SURE 



THAT SUCH 
ADDITIONAL REPORT OF 
HIM AS I CAN FURNISH FROM 
THESE VISITS WILL PROVE 
OF INTEREST TO HIS MANY 
FRIENDS, AND THAT IT WILL 
BE ACCEPTED AS SANCTIONED 
IN A SENSE BY THE AUTHOR 
OF THE PARABLE.1 




Class 
Book 



13T17 



:i^M 



Copyright}!^. 



CQFmiGHT DEPOSIT. 






you SAW THE RETURNED 
PRODIGAL,' SAID THE 
SERVANT, ON HIS HIGH DAY, 
BUT EVERY DAY IS A HIGH 
DAY FOR HIS BROTHER.'" 



THE PRODIGAL SON TEN 
YEARS LATER 



THE PRODIGAL SON 

TEN YEARS 

LATER 



BY 

JOHN ANDREW HOLMES, D. D. 




THE PILGRIM PRESS 

BOSTON CHICAGO 



-^i^^ 



COPYWGHT 1917 

By JOHN ANDREW HOLMES 



THE PILGRIM PRESS 
BOSTON 



SEP -B 1917 

B'a4476041 

'1 L *. I 



^-0 

n 



^HIS BOOK IS DEDICATED TO ALL 
^^ YOUTHS AND MAIDENS WHO ARE 
STILL ABIDING IN THEIR FATHER'S 
HOUSE, IN THE HOPE THAT IT MAY 
HELP THEM TO REMAIN WHERE 
THEY ARE HAPPIER THAN THE 
MOST FORTUNATE PRODIGAL WHO 
HAS EVER RETURNED FROM THE 
FAR COUNTRY ::::::: 



/ 



FOREWORD 

Shortly before the time of 
Christ, there actually lived a cer- 
tain prodigal son. Of this we have 
documentary proof. Only re- 
cently there has been unearthed a 
letter written by him to his mother. 
In this letter he states that he has 
heard from his friend Postumus 
that his mother had gone to the 
metropolis to look for him. If he 
had only known, he would have 
met her there, but he had not the 
courage to go back to his own vil- 
lage. "I go about in rags," he 
says, "I write to you that I am 
naked. I beseech you. Mother, be 
reconciled to me. I know what I 
have brought upon myself. I have 
been chastened every day. I know 
that I have sinned. I beseech 

[vii] 



FOREWORD 

you . . ." The rest is too worn 
and torn to read. 

It may be that this boy was the 
prodigal in real life from whom 
the Author of a famous parable 
sketched the character of the 
Prodigal Son. But if so, he has 
ceased to live in any one age, and 
dwells now in all time. And this 
is not only because he appears in a 
literary production that is immor- 
tal, but because as a matter of fact 
he is a character of all ages. Like 
the Wandering Jew, every century 
has seen him. 

It is due to this timelessness of 
the Prodigal that I have been able 
to pay him two visits. The first 
time I stopped at his father's farm 
was some ten years before his de- 
parture for the Far Country. Ten 
years after he had returned I 
called on the young man again. I 
feel sure that such additional re- 

[viii] 



FOREWORD 

port of him as I can furnish from 
these visits will prove of interest 
to his many friends, and that it 
will be accepted as sanctioned in 
a sense by the Author of the par- 
able, for he it is who has laid down 
the principles from which one may 
assure oneself of the truth of this 
account. 



ixl 



THE PRODIGAL SON TEN 
YEARS LATER 



^/^ ^ ttvMn mati I|ab tmo anttB . . . 

Anh . . * tl|r gnttttgrr aon gatlif rrb 
all tog^tlf^r anb taok IftB |oturnrg ittto a far 
roiintrg; anb tlirrt l|r muBUh I^xb Bubsitwxtt 
mttl| ruit0tt0 l!tttn$. And ...!;»... 
Bjjjttt all . . . — Luke 15: ii-i^, 

Niim lyia tlbf r aott maa In tljr Mb . . . 
Attb l|^ aaih mtto lytm, i^ntt, tlj0« art *wr 
wttlj mf , anb all tljal ia mit» ta Uttt^.— 
Luke 15: 25, 31. 



THE PRODIGAL SON TEN 
YEARS LATER 

On my first visit to the home of 
him who has since been known 
widely as the Prodigal Son, I re- 
mained a nmnber of days. I en- 
joyed abundant opportunity on 
that occasion for both talking with 
him and observing him. He was 
an engaging little fellow, inter- 
ested in every adventurous sport, 
and we rapidly became warm 
friends. Yet even then I per- 
ceived that not all was well with 
him. 

The fact is that the lad was al- 
ready preparing rapidly for his 
notorious trip. He had begun to 
choose pleasures that he knew were 
weakening and wrong, whereas 
his brother showed a disposition to 
[3] 



THE PRODIGAL SON 

stand out against them. I found 
him attending school only when 
there was no stronger attraction 
elsewhere. He had failed to get 
his way in his class on the Sabbath, 
and had dropped out. Nor was he 
attending the service of worship. 
It was evident that he regarded 
the hard things of life as electives, 
and that he was growing up 
undisciplined. 

Now I was not unaware whither 
such a course leads. I felt con- 
fident even then that it was only 
a matter of time until my little 
friend would be eating with the 
pigs in the far-away land. 

I felt the surer of this because 
of a certain belief that I found in 
his country. Many said that it 
was not a bad thing for boys to go 
away for a season, and, as they 
put it, "see life." It is scarce too 
much to say that they were ex- 

[4] 



TEN YEARS LATER 

pected to go. Indeed, there were 
not lacking authorities to insist 
that boys like this one could not 
avoid going. "To predict what his 
life must be," they told me, "you 
would need only to have known 
his grandfather. For the old man 
was an emigrant himself, and the 
lad was born with emigrant blood 
in him. He is, therefore, bound to 
emigrate." 

I am sure, however, that this 
was an exaggeration. I am not 
unaware that there are children 
who come into the world so crip- 
pled and blind and degenerate that 
they seem marked for the Far 
Country. Indeed, there are those 
who seem to have been born there. 
But these are exceptions. It had 
not been so with the Prodigal. It 
is true that he had not inherited 
quite the same tendencies as his 
brother, nor shown precisely the 
[5] 



THE PRODIGAL SON 

same degree of natural vigor. He 
was a bit short in power of resist- 
ance, and prolonged effort seemed 
constitutionally harder for him. 
But this was all. There seemed to 
me no reason why he ever need 
leave his father, and if the com- 
munity, instead of arguing so 
earnestly that the lad was destined 
to go away, had interested itself in 
preventing such journeys, it seems 
plain to me that his story would 
have been different. 

Yet, strange to say, the neigh- 
bors frequently subscribed with 
real cheerfulness vast sums to 
bring wanderers back. Every- 
body wanted them to return, and 
from time to time there would re- 
cur periods of much emotion over 
the effort to recover them. I re- 
member, particularly, that I heard 
loud praise of a certain route by 
which a great many would occa- 
[6] 



TEN YEARS LATER 

sionally come home together. It 
was called the Sawdust Trail, and 
great was the joy associated with 
a return over it. During that visit 
I talked about this Trail with a 
neighbor of the boy's family. "I 
knew a man," said he, "who went 
to the Far Country, and became so 
vicious that the pigs were too 
proud to eat husks with him. But 
he finally hit the Sawdust Trail, 
and the experience was so glorious 
that he seemed almost glad that he 
had gone wrong. Now," contin- 
ued this neighbor, "the elder 
brother in the household you are 
visiting, who is iso sober and in- 
dustrious, will never be able to rise 
in a meeting and tell of the joyous 
return that this man could boast; 
but this younger boy, who is al- 
ready packing for the trip, will be 
in position to get just such an 
experience." 

[7] 



THE PRODIGAL SON 

I knew, however, that I had 
seen many young men going to 
that far-oif land for every one I 
had seen returning. And I re- 
called also that men whose duty 
was to bring young people back 
agreed with those who made it 
their business to restrain them 
from going that unless first there 
had been a good deal of attention 
paid to teaching a boy the beauties 
of the home land, the chance of his 
return from such a journey was 
almost negligible. 

It was with sadness, therefore, 
that I took my leave of my young 
friend. I knew which way he was 
headed, and I was gravely doubt- 
ful of his return. However, all 
my doubts upon the latter point 
had been removed long before my 
second visit, twenty years later. 
Whatever may have happened to 
[8] 



TEN YEARS LATER 

his companions, at least this boy 
came back. 

I heard a great deal about his 
father's forgiveness of him, and had 
my share in the rejoicing over it. 
In spirit, I witnessed the dancing, 
enjoyed the music, and ate my 
share of the fatted calf. The more 
I listened to the wonderful story 
of my friend's happy return, the 
more anxious I grew to set my 
eyes upon him again, and rejoice 
with him in his own home, imtil 
one day I found myself once more 
on the way to his father's farm. 

Upon drawing near the house I 
was not surprised to hear an or- 
chestra playing. Through the 
window I descried a man dining 
with friends. I asked a servant 
to say to this man that an old 
friend of his, who had rejoiced in 
his return, had come to visit him. 
I was informed, to my surprise, 

[9] 



THE PRODIGAL SON 

that this was not the younger son, 
as I had assumed, but his elder 
brother, who had made so sorry an 
appearance in the parable. I 
could hardly believe it, and when I 
was told that the younger brother 
was in the field, where I might find 
him, I remonstrated, saying that 
I had always associated the hard 
work of the farm with the man 
who was now so comfortable in the 
house, and that I had never imag- 
ined him who was in the field, ex- 
cept as eating delicious veal to the 
sound of the violin. 

I was told politely that this was 
an error into which all visitors had 
apparently fallen, and an illustra- 
tion of how common it was to read 
into the works of the Author of 
the story of the younger brother 
much not contained therein. I 
was informed that this Author 
usually had one lesson he desired 

[10] 



TEN YEARS LATER 

to teach, and but one, in any given 
story, and that he selected only 
such facts out of the lives of his 
characters as he needed for that 
purpose. It was true, I was told, 
that a special dinner had been pre- 
pared in honor of the return of this 
lost boy, and for one day he had 
been the cynosure of all eyes, while 
the father in his great joy could 
think of ^ nothing else than that one 
whom he had counted dead was re- 
turned to life. But there had been 
only the one day of the wanderer's 
return; and the next day, and all 
days since, had been different ; and 
while the way of the repentant 
transgressor had not been so hard 
as it had been in the Far Country, 
still it had by no means become 
soft. "You will remember," said 
my informant, "when you pause 
to think, that even on the day of 
the feast over the Prodigal's re- 
[11] 



THE PRODIGAL SON 

turn, when the elder brother had 
protested against such a demon- 
stration, the father distinctly 
stated that that was a unique occa- 
sion, because of a special event, 
while every day was a day of glad- 
ness because of his elder son, who 
was always with him, and entitled 
to everything he had at all times. 
So indeed has it been," concluded 
the servant. "You saw the re- 
turned Prodigal, through the par- 
able, on his high day. But every 
day is a high day for his brother." 
Then there came to me the 
words of an old book. I had com- 
mitted them to memory years be- 
fore, and believed them in a vague 
sort of way, yet strangely enough, 
I had never thought of them when 
I read this parable. 

"Let not thine heart envy sinners; 
But be thou in the fear of the Lord all 

the day long: 
For surely there is a sequel ..." 

[12] 



TEN YEARS LATER 

How those words fitted the 
thoughts I had indulged concern- 
ing these brothers and their par- 
able! My heart had envied this 
young sinner, and the man who 
had been in the fear of the Lord 
all the day long I had despised, all 
because of what had happened on 
one particular occasion. That 
there would be a sequel, I had 
never considered, but now that my 
eyes were open, I wished to know 
what it might be ; so I hastened to 
the field. 

When I was yet a long way off, 
I saw the bent form of a plough- 
man. As I drew near, I noted a 
lack of firmness in his tread. His 
hair was gray, his eyes downcast, 
his face so wrinkled and scarred 
that it seemed branded by the hot 
iron of the cruel king of the Far 
Country. I was about to inquire 
where I might find him whom I 
[13] 



THE PRODIGAL SON 

sought, when suddenly something 
in the way the man looked up at 
me seemed strangely familiar. 
Impossible as it seemed, this was 
the same person I had known 
twenty years earlier. His smile 
was still winsome, and my heart 
went out to him again, but my| 
cheery greeting died upon my lips, 
as a great wave of pity swept over 
my soul. The abundant vitality 
that had once been his was gone. 
While he had lived fewer years 
than his brother, it was; obvious 
that he was also nearer the end of 
his days. 

He talked with me frankly, as 
he had done in his boyhood. "The 
whole world," he said, "knows the 
substance of my story. I had my 
fling, and I have not quite recov- 
ered my equilibrium. I was a 
drinking man when I was out there 
in that mining camp — there were 

[14] 



TEN YEARS LATER 

months at a time when I was sober 
scarce a day altogether — and the 
Author was right in saying that 
in such riotous living I wasted my 
substance. It was not alone that I 
spent all my fortune, but the 
physicians tell me that at the same 
time I burned out the best ele- 
ments of my blood, and lost the 
steadiness from my nerves. 

"After one of my drunken 
orgies," he continued, "I lay out in 
the cold half the night, and from 
that night's exposure I shall never 
recover. When I was out of 
money, and out of health, I was 
for a while in actual want. Those 
were the days when even husks 
looked good to me, and my 
strength was further depleted by 
hunger. Nor is this all. There 
are things I did when under the 
power of liquor that I could not 
bring myself to tell a living soul. 

[15] 



THE PRODIGAL SON 

And from those shameless acts, in 
which I prostituted the most 
sacred powers I possess, my body 
is weak and impure. While I have 
returned from the Far Country, 
and rejoice in all it means to me 
to be back, still its effects upon my 
health and strength remain, and 
when the minister shall say that I 
have been taken out of this world 
in the providence of God, he will 
not be telling the whole story, in 
which my own improvidence plays 
a somber part." 

I have put the substance of his 
conversation on this point into my 
own language, but as I heard him 
talk I perceived that it was not 
alone his body that had suffered. 
For he was illiterate, and the 
pleasures of long evenings around 
the reading table were denied him. 
Nor were the joys of cultivated 
society his. I gathered from what 
[16] 



TEN YEARS LATER 

he told me that when his brother 
entertained the great and wise, he 
himself felt so out of place, that 
he preferred to remain in the stable 
in the company of the horses. 

He admitted also that he was 
not a good farmer. "I don't un- 
derstand the soil," said he, "as my 
brother does; I know nothing of 
judging grain or stock; and ma- 
chinery is a mystery to me. 
While my brother was learning all 
that my father knew of agricul- 
ture, and adding new knowledge 
from the experiment stations, I 
was sowing wild oats, and learning 
nothing. So while I am not 
treated as a hired servant, still I 
feel like one. I am only a manual 
laborer on this farm, doing the 
coarse work, while hired servants 
perform skilled labor, and earn 
more than I do." 

By this time, I scarce needed to 
[17] 



THE PRODIGAL SON 

ask if he was poor, for how could 
he be otherwise? He had had his 
half of the property, and it was 
gone. As the father had said on 
the day of his return, all that re- 
mained of the estate was the elder 
brother's. During the decade 
since, the wealthier one, through 
the natural growth of his inheri- 
tance, hastened by his own skilled 
management, had grown still more 
wealthy; but the poorer one had 
made little headway. With no 
property to produce an income, 
with no power of educated intel- 
lect, with no acquired skill in farm- 
ing, with an impaired body and 
shrunken courage, he was able to 
purchase food and medicine, and 
little more. While the fatted calf 
had been his, yet all the cattle on 
all the hills of the ancestral estate 
belonged to his brother. And 
upon the returned Prodigal was 
- [18] 



TEN YEARS LATER 

now being enforced the law of the 
sweaty brow, which the elder son 
had already fulfilled. 

To be sure, the more fortunate 
one was charitable enough toward 
him. Yet you would easily gather 
from the parable itself, what ob- 
servers in all centuries have also 
attested, that the elder brother was 
possessed of a keen sense of jus- 
tice, which kept his sense of kind- 
ness well in check. He felt that 
his brother had already had his 
share, and that he himself was en- 
titled to the wealth he had honestly 
inherited, as well as to what he had 
laboriously earned. 

Nor have I told you yet all that 
I learned to my sorrow and sur- 
prise that day. The man in the 
field showed in his whole bearing 
that a realization of the losses he 
had occasioned others during his 
lapse from decency was now bur- 

[19] 



THE PRODIGAL SON 

dening his spirit. He had led an- 
other youth into the Far Country, 
for men seldom go there alone. In 
a drunken riot, he had injured a 
man. He had not only devoured 
his living with harlots, but he had 
done his share to add to their 
wretched number, having caused 
the ruin of a trusting girl. In 
those days, the better man in him 
had lain unconscious; but now he 
had come to himself, and the 
knowledge of the wrongs he had 
done burned within him like the 
fires of Gehenna. The sufferings 
he had inflicted upon others were 
beyond repair, and no forgiveness 
from his father could ever remove 
the cankering knowledge that he 
had committed them, and that 
somewhere there was a man who 
was a criminal and a woman who 
was hopeless, because of what he 
had done. 

[20] 



TEN YEARS LATER 

Nor had the neighbors forgot- 
ten. They loved to call him "the 
jailbird," and when they were an- 
gry they always twitted him of his 
past, and spoke with derision of 
his "trip abroad," and of how 
much it had cost him. While he 
was more fortunate than most men 
who have served their terms in 
prison, because he had work and 
a living and a home that could not 
be taken from him, still he suffered 
much of the anguish of spirit that 
all ex-convicts know. The hard- 
heartedness, disdain and prudent 
cautiousness of men whose records 
were free of outward flaw bore 
heavily upon his spirit. 

This poor man told me also that 
he envied the happy home life of 
his brother, who was blessed in 
the pure love of wife and children. 
He himself had loved a good 
woman. But her father would 

[21] 



THE PRODIGAL SON 

never have consented to their mar- 
riage. And his own conscience 
had been so quickened since his re- 
turn that he could not ask a de- 
cent woman to become unequally 
yoked together with one who by 
the life of a debauchee had for- 
feited all right to a happy home 
life. All this the man told me, in 
great heaviness of soul. 

These revelations came to me as 
a shock. I had thought only of his 
forgiveness by a loving father, and 
the gratifying fact that he was 
always ready to meet his children 
more than half way with his par- 
don, but I had not considered that 
forgiveness does not necessarily 
include wealth, nor health, nor 
education, nor a happy memory of 
a well-spent past, nor the respect 
of one's neighbors, nor the enjoy- 
ments of society. But now I be- 
held with my own eyes, and I saw 

[22] 



TEN YEARS LATER 

that even forgiveness has its 
hmitations. 

I learned further that in a mul- 
titude of similar cases the condi- 
tion of returned prodigals was 
worse, for the majority had been 
enticed or driven again to the Far 
Country, and had perished there. 
He himself had very nearly gone 
back. The inhospitable temper of 
his brother had been almost more 
than the returned wanderer could 
bear. And on the Sabbath many 
of the elder brothers in the congre- 
gation looked suspiciously at him, 
saying that he looked rather dis- 
reputable to be seen in a pew. 
What with his lack of settled 
habits, and what with the power 
his appetites and passions and in- 
dolence had acquired, it had been 
only by the narrowest margin that 
he had not drifted back to the Far 
Country. ^'Indeed," said one man, 

[23] 



THE PRODIGAL SON 

"he is the only prodigal who has 
ever come back to this community 
who stuck, and some of us don't 
believe it pays to have such trash 
return at all." 

Do you wonder, then, that I said 
as I communed with myself, on my 
way home from the field where I 
had met the Prodigal at his 
plough, that I would never cease 
to warn young men and women 
against the beguilement of the Far 
Country? "I will tell them," I 
said, "that no forgiveness, however 
freely granted, can take the place 
of innocence. I will tell them that 
the father cannot give them back 
all they have lost. I will say to 
them that those who return are few 
at the best, and that even of those 
the majority yield again to the 
deadly lure of that region. I will 
warn them not to set their hearts 
on the hope that they may come at 

[24] 



TEN YEARS LATER 

length, ragged and hungry, stag- 
gering home, with black and bitter 
memories and darkened hopes, 
along the Sawdust Trail. I will 
bend my strongest energies to 
guarding the frontier of the 
father's land, and no youth or 
maiden, if I can help it, shall ever 
receive a passport into the Far 
Country." And I meditated 
again on the words I have quoted 
from that old book : 

" Let not thine heart envy sinners; 
But be thou in the fear of the Lord all 

the day long: 
For surely there is a sequel ..." 

Yet I would not close the story 
without saying that this man 
seemed happy. There was a real 
joy in his countenance, and even 
as I walked away, pitying him, I 
heard him singing at his humble 
plough, "O happy day that fixed 
my choice!" He knew that he had 

[25] 



THE PRODIGAL SON 

been reinstated. He had come 
back to his father, and he had the 
consciousness of being his son. 

It was true that his mother had 
died of a broken heart, and he 
could neither forget that he was 
the cause, nor bring her back. Yet 
surely even she was happy in 
heaven over his return. There 
was great rejoicing there, he had 
been told, over every sinner that 
repented. And how happy he was 
in the favor of his father! While 
the old man leaned for counsel and 
for execution upon the elder son, 
yet his affection was no less for the 
younger. 

'The fellowship of the father 
and his returned boy was a delight 
to witness. Sometimes one fancied 
indeed that there was a certain 
added intensity to it because of 
the temporary estrangement, and 
once I heard the old man echoing, 
[26] 



TEN YEARS LATER 

when he thought no one was listen- 
ing, those words twice repeated on 
the great day of the return: "This 
my son was dead, and is alive 
again." 

To be sure, this could not re- 
store the wealth, the health, the 
education, the skill, the reputation, 
the happiness, nor even quite the 
security, that his outlaw life had 
taken away; yet he was forgiven, 
and all the old estrangement was 
gone forever. 

He could not hope to be quite 
what he might have been. Some 
of the evil he had done would be 
upon him until death. Yet he 
would no longer be lost. Whereas 
he had been dead, he was alive 
again. Moreover, the future 
would work for him; and who can 
say what eternity, in the hands of 
the Infinite, may not accomplish? 

There was one very peculiar 
[27] 



THE PRODIGAL SON 

joy, it should be added, that this 
man possessed. Out of his expe- 
rience with sin and its sorrow, it 
was given him to paint the horror 
of it all as the minister down at 
the church could not. And when 
all ordinary means of rescuing 
men from a wandering life had 
been tried, it became quite the cus- 
tom to call him in. Whole com- 
munities would do this, and ask 
him out of his experience with the 
accursed thing to plead with others 
who were what he had been. This 
man spoke out of a wretched ex- 
perience of evil and a deep sense 
of the blessedness of his new life, 
that made their appeal to thou- 
sands who seemed beyond the 
reach of wise and saintly pastors. 
I communed with myself of 
these things also as I came home 
from that famous farm. And I 
said: "The fatted calf, and the 
[28] 



TEN YEARS LATER 

dancing, and the music, and the 
outstretched arms of the father, 
and the ring and the robe, were 
not too much to express the joy we 
all should feel when a prodigal re- 
turns. It is immeasurably better 
to come back from the Far Coun- 
try than to remain there. Never 
will I fail to urge a prodigal to 
return." 

Yet I did not waver from my 
principal determination that at all 
hazards I would prevent young 
people from squandering their in- 
heritance. For it was too obvious 
how much the forgiven son still 
lacked of being what he might have 
been. While on the high day of his 
return there was great rejoicing, 
yet far more blessed is the son who 
has remained ever at home. All 
that the father has belongs always 
to him. 

[29] 



&t ttot tJjttt? If^art ^tttig BxnmxB; 
Ittt be tl|0U ttt % foar of % ffiori 

all % bag long: 
3F0r Hwreig tlf^re ta a aequel . * • 

—Proverbs 23 : 17, 18. 



you SAW THE RETURNED 
PRODIGAL/ SAID THE 
SERVANT, *0N HIS HIGH DAY. 
BUT EVERY DAY IS A HIGH 
DAY FOR HIS BROTHER.'" 



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I FEEL SURE THAT SUCH 
ADDITIONAL REPORT OF 
HIM AS I CAN FURNISH FROM 
THESE VISITS WILL PROVE 
OF INTEREST TO HIS MANY 
FRIENDS, AND THAT IT WILL 
BE ACCEPTED AS SANCTIONED 
IN A SENSE BY THE AUTHOR 
OF THE PARABLE/' 



